A HEARTY LAUGH.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 98, 20 December 1912, Page 7

A HEARTY LAUGH.

O SCHOOL INSPECTOR’S ADVICE TO

TEACHERS

Invercargill, December 8

The need of introducing the happy smile and ready wit into public schools was a subject upon which inspector Hendry had something to say in ins remarks on discipline, when reporting to the Education Hoard yesterday.

The board’s inspectors had, he said, had many opportunities of recording their satisfaction with the standard ol discipline to bo found in the scho r.s of this district. In the large majority of cases the Government, while mild am, sympathetic, is thoroughly effect!v> and it was a rule to find promptlyexecuted class movements associated with active attention, ready response, and cheerful obedience. There were, however some schools in which, thong a the order might bo described as good, the discipline was not sufficiently 'forceful to produce the. results that should be aimed at. The teachers in these schools did not apparently realise that there were children who must lie compelled to exert themselves mentally until the habit of industry was unacquired and sufficient interest was aroused to render the.instruction given profitable, and there were still to be fourid schools in which the discipline was that of the military martinet. Here was developed an atmosphere of repression fatal to the existence of that sympathy and spirit of co-operation between teacher and pupil, without which the best results were almost impossible of attainment. The teacher dared not unbend, lost ho did injury to that very fragile possession, Jus dignity.

The manner iii\ which children taught under those unnatural conditions, continued the inspector, respond to an inspectorial joke was characteristic, and would be ludicrous if it were not pitiful. The pupils, nevertheless, smile and'the quick, half-fearful, halfapologetic glance at the teacher was well known to every inspector. To his enquiry the other day as to how a certain recently-appointed assistant was doing, the headmaster, a wise and experienced teacher, replied: “He is doing very well, indeed; ho has secured such a grip of his pupils that he can afford to joke with them without in the least losing control.” To those teachers, said Inspector Hendry, who had not yet learned to appreciate the virtue and value of a laugh, the following short extract from a teachers’ journal was commended : “It would be difficult to find anything in our school work which is so under-valued as a laugh. We grumble at the thickheadedness and lassitude of our children, we chafe under the dullness of our lessons, but if men could only teach those committed to our charge how and when and where to laugh, how different it might be. Children gifted with a sense of humour are far more tractable and easy to teach than those who look as though they cannot laugh, but this sense, like all other senses, must be cultivated, and cultivated with the utmost care, because at the same time one must teach that most difficult cf all lessons, self-control. “Think how much more pleasant it must be for the children to come to school with a knowledge that school means pleasure, as well as hard work, than to come as so many poor little mites do, knowing that in school hours they may not speak, nor move, nor even smile. Then, too, the swift good-humoured laugh may often be used as a means of discipline. We have so many devices for securing attention, but when all others have proved ineffectual or when we have become skilful enough to knew exactly when to make use of it, we shall find that the device of provoking a hearty laugh on the part of the class will often regain the flagging interest.”